


Just Hold Me, Please

by BeneaththeHalo



Series: Merthur Party [6]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Returns, M/M, Merlin and Arthur reunited, Merthur Party, Merthur Party 2013, Post Diamond of the Day, Team Orange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 11:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneaththeHalo/pseuds/BeneaththeHalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been 1500 years since Arthur died. Well, 1506 years, four months, one week and two days to be exact. That was how long Merlin had been waiting for his king to return, and for his heart to be whole again.<br/>Merlin wouldn't be waiting for very much longer, though- soon, he will back in Arthur's arms at long last. Soon, he will be whole once more.<br/>My submission for Merthur Party 2013 Prompt 6- Just the Beginning. Go Team Orange!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Hold Me, Please

It had been 1500 years since King Arthur Pendragon, the Once and Future King, had died. Well, 1506 years, four months, one week and two days, but who was counting, really?

Merlin was counting, that's who.

Merlin had lived those 1500+ years without his king, his other half... his love. Some years had been harder than others- like that one he'd met a guy who could've been Arthur's long lost brother, but was not the king himself. He’d known realistically that there was no chance it was his king, since he knew Arthur would rise from Avalon, and Merlin had barely left the lake’s shore. Still, he’d let himself get his hopes up, only to realise very quickly that this person was _not_ Arthur, and feel his heart breaking all over again. He didn’t leave Avalon for three months after that.

Part of Merlin had always wondered whether he would actually know whether or not Arthur had risen again. After all, there was always a chance that he would rise from a place that was _not_ Avalon. But another part of Merlin, the stronger part, the part that had always belonged to Arthur and no one else, knew that this could not be true. He had always felt so _empty_ since Arthur died, no matter now much time had passed. As long as the emptiness remained, not to mention the feeling of not being quite whole, Merlin knew Arthur still slept, waiting.

And so Merlin kept waiting.

Merlin often wondered what the afterlife was like. Was Arthur with the others, with all of their friends and loved ones, or was he stuck in a never-ending period of _waiting_ like Merlin was? Elyan and Gwaine and all of the others had all died, never to return. While Arthur had died, though, he was destined to rise again when Albion’s need was greatest. So was he truly dead? Maybe this was why Merlin could sense his presence somewhere beyond the surface of the lake, and why he sometimes felt like Arthur was listening when Merlin spoke to him. Maybe Arthur really _was_ just beyond Merlin’s reach, watching and listening, waiting for the moment he could rejoin his other half and his love.

Merlin could only hope.

It was a cold, blustery Wednesday when it happened- when Merlin started feeling weird. He’d been away from Avalon for a few weeks before that, fearing that he’d been noticed, but had returned a few days prior. There was a sudden clenching in his stomach, and he’d looked out over the lake, almost as if he’d been compelled to do so. When Merlin looked hard enough, he could’ve sworn he saw a rippling on the surface of the lake, but the moment he saw it, it was gone. After over a thousand years of false dawns and having his hopes dashed, Merlin didn’t read too much into the movement and his queasy stomach. Those two things alone weren’t a sign- they happened all the time. He would definitely need more than that.

But, since something felt _different,_ somehow, Merlin kept watching.

The strange feeling in Merlin’s stomach continued to grow. At first, he thought he was going to be sick, but now it felt like a _tugging_ , tying him to something in the lake. _Arthur._ It had to be. Merlin now felt like he couldn’t leave the lake’s edge, even if he wanted to. “Are you coming back to me, my king?” he whispered. The lake rippled again, this time in response to Merlin’s question, and the warlock couldn’t help but freeze where he was. “Arthur?”

But that was the only movement there was. Merlin waited, holding his breath in anticipation, but the lake stilled once more. This time, though, Merlin’s hope didn’t fade like it had all those times before. Instead it remained within him, burning like a flame- small and dull for now, but with the possibility to grow much bigger.

Merlin refused to move from the lakeside, then. He just watched, and waited.

When Merlin looked down at his wizened old hands, ones that he had allowed to grow old from the age he could’ve stopped, he suddenly hated them. They weren’t _right_. They weren’t right at all. He whispered the incantation- one he hadn’t used in over 1500 years but still remembered well- and his eyes flashed gold. Merlin watched, almost fascinated, as his skin pulled tight again, until it looked as new as it had the day that Arthur died. He knew his beard had disappeared as well, and his hair was jet black once more. He was the Merlin that Arthur remembered. He was the Merlin that Arthur had loved.

 _If you return, I want you to see the last face you remember,_ Merlin thought to himself. _I want you to see the face that you loved, and that loved you. I want you to see the face that was yours_.

And so Merlin, finally young again, continued to wait, but with a youthful optimism that he hadn’t possessed since… well, since before Arthur had died. _Soon,_ he thought. _Soon_.

The next time Merlin saw movement on the surface of the lake, it was like something was moving in the water’s depths. Merlin leapt to his feet, watching, his heart pounding so heart he felt like it was going to leap out of his chest. “Arthur?” he whispered. “Arthur?” And for a third time, this time even louder than before, “Arthur!”

The movement in the water continued to grow, until Merlin finally saw something breach the surface. It was somebody’s head, that he was certain. The rest of him followed, his body still covered by the chainmail and cape bearing the Pendragon crest that he’d worn the day he died. In his hand he held Excalibur, having caught in when Merlin had thrown it into the lake.

Arthur had risen again.

Merlin immediately ran to him, stumbling through the water until he’d reached his king. He threw his arms around Arthur, burying his face in his chest. “Arthur,” he whispered. “Arthur, oh Arthur…”

“I’m here, Merlin,” Arthur whispered back, and his voice was like the sweetest melody, the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. He put his arms around Merlin then (careful not to get him with his sword) and held him close. Both Merlin and Arthur’s arms tightened, as if they were afraid of the other appearing.

“You’re back,” said Merlin. “You’re really back.” It was then that Merlin started crying, great, wracking sobs that he didn’t think he could stop.

“Merlin, are you okay?” Arthur asked, as concerned for the warlock’s wellbeing as he’d always been. “What’s wrong? What do you need?”

“I don’t- I don’t need anything,” Merlin managed to choke out. “Just… just hold me. Please.” Arthur recognised those words with a great pang of his heart; they were the last thing he’d ever asked of Merlin. There was no way Arthur could not comply with the request, and so he scooped Merlin into his arms, carrying the crying man back to the shore.

Arthur stumbled to a place where he could put Merlin down, eventually finding a clean grassy patch. He lowered Merlin to the ground, but didn’t remove his own arms from around the man. In fact, he didn’t move until Merlin had stopped crying and pulled away himself. “I’m sorry,” Merlin said. “That’s probably the last thing you want to see when you rise from the dead, huh?”

Arthur just laughed. “It’s no less than I expected,” he said. “You always acted like such a girl. But didn’t I tell you that no man was ever worth your tears.”

“Obviously, you had never imagined a future in which I would lose you,” said Merlin. He reached out and cupped Arthur’s cheek, the king leaning into his touch. “Because believe me, you are worth every tear I’ve ever shed. And you are definitely worth the more than one and a half thousand years that I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I would like to think so,” said Arthur. “I _am_ the Once and Future King, after all.”

“You’re not just _the_ Once and Future King,” said Merlin. “You’re _my_ Once and Future King. And you always will be.” Merlin leaned forward then, finally getting to kiss his love again. It was exactly the same as he’d remembered- equal parts sweetness and care and passion and reckless abandon- but at the same time it was completely different. This was a kiss borne of years of longing and yearning and _waiting_.

Merlin and Arthur helped each other out of their clothes, then, and Arthur took his warlock right there on the forest floor. God, how they’d missed each other- more than either of them could say with words. They could say it with their actions, though, and so there was a lot of gripping tightly and moaning and _“Oh gods, how I missed you!”_ Merlin’s magic was swirling in the air around them, golden strands of light that seemed to dance with happiness and wind themselves around Arthur. Obviously, Merlin’s magic had missed Arthur just as much as Merlin himself.

When Merlin and Arthur finally stilled and were lying on the forest floor with Arthur’s cape as a blanket, the king finally turned to his former manservant. “Merlin, I need to tell you something.”

Merlin froze where he was. “You’re not- you’re not leaving me again, are you?” he asked, suddenly scared. “Not already?”

“No, Merlin,” said Arthur vehemently. “I’m not leaving you. I’m never leaving you. But I spoke to- Freya, I think it was? The girl you _kissed_ barely a year after you’d been in Camelot, and who became the lady of the lake after her death? She said that this time, when I die, you get to come with me.”

“You mean I get to die too?” Merlin gasped. “I get to follow you to Avalon? I don’t have to wait more than a millennium for you to come back to me again?”

“No,” said Arthur, with that same warm smile that Merlin had always loved. It seemed that the sun shone out of Arthur’s every orifice when he smiled like that. “Merlin, you’ll never have to wait for me again.”

Merlin threw his arms around Arthur then, holding him close. “I never have to let you go again,” Merlin whispered, gripping Arthur as tightly as he could. The king could hear Merlin’s ragged breathing, and so he asked again, “Merlin, what do you need?”

“You. Just hold me, please,” Merlin repeated, and Arthur complied. He didn’t think he’d be able to disobey a request from Merlin anymore. Not after everything he’d put him through.

Merlin, meanwhile, felt safer in Arthur’s arms than he had in… well, more than 1500 years. He felt safe, and _whole_ , and _loved_. He had his other half, his king, his _soul mate_ … his love. Merlin never het to let him go again.

And if Merlin asked Arthur to hold him again… Arthur would never, ever say no.


End file.
